I came up with the idea of having photographs of family members who are no longer with us. This meant they would be remembered and there on a day that represents love and togetherness.
It was an easy decision to come to, as during the wedding planning, my nan passed away in January after suffering for a long time with dementia. Then, another family member - my Nan's sister who we all call 'aunty' - passed away unexpectedly exactly 7 days later on my niece's first birthday.
What an awful month.
Both had been on our original guest list, although I was prepared my nan may not be well enough to make the journey. As my aunty's death was out of the blue, I could never bring myself to look at that list. I still haven't to this day. It didn't feel right crossing through her name, 'replacing' her with another guest. So I wrote the whole list out again from memory and invited two family members we previously didn't have room for.
This spurred me on to create a loose 'theme' of memories. I even have Memories tattooed on my wrist, which I've had for around 8 years now.
So, memories it is!
A few people did get emotional when they saw their loved ones' pictures on our tables and I did hear conversations about the people who couldn't be there but were there in so many ways. A few people walked around to take a better look, and this struck up conversations. Our best man toasted "to lost loved ones" during his speech.
We created the centre pieces by scanning our chosen photographs, printing, then using photo frames from The Range shop.
We named the tables after our loved ones in the photos. This took a bit of thought and creativity - I kept coming up with ideas then going off the name and back to the drawing board!
A couple were easy and unwavering - my husband's dad was a keen golfer and we were having the photo of him on the top table. So Top Golf seemed like the obvious choice! As we had an odd amount of tables - we had one that had a mix of my husband's family and mine. So we called this one Dolly's Mixture as my dad's late mum was called Dorothy!
The other names didn't come as easily and I was constantly playing around with different ideas! My mum's late mum, whom we lost this year, was very talented at knitting - she made the bride and groom below so her table was My Knitting Nan. The others, my aunt who we also lost this January, was a dance star in her youth and ran a dancing school. So her table was Queen of Dance, my uncle's was Blue-Eyed Brian due to his piercing eyes in the vintage photo we found. Another of my uncles who, we assume, died in unknown circumstances, we used his name for this table.
It was just a small way to show we think of those everyday, and they are there included in every aspect of our lives.
For, those no longer with us, will forever be in our hearts.
Table plan: photo frame and card from The Range
No comments:
Post a Comment